PART TWO
PART TWO
Americans are not getting enough rest. A recent article in Forbes magazine argues that nearly 40% of Americans sleep less than six hours a night, leading to a higher risk for a number of health problems. Even back in 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regarded America’s sleep problem to be a public health epidemic.
But it is not just lack of physical rest that’s a problem. We also need spiritual rest. The Christian life, as wonderful as it is, can also be very tiring. As we labor through the “desert” of this life, trials and tribulations can be exhausting. As humans, we are always longing for a place where we can finally rest from our spiritual journey.
Of course, God himself knows this. That’s why, even in Old Testament times, he talked a lot about rest. In fact, God made a wonderful promise to the Israelites: that he would take them into the promised land of Canaan, a place of great rest. But, as we shall see below, the physical land of Canaan was not the ultimate rest God had in mind. Canaan was a picture of the great rest all believers would enjoy someday in heaven with God himself.
A Warning Against Unbelief
Despite God’s desire to give his people rest, not all received it. Our passage begins in Hebrews 3:7-11 with a warning from Psalm 95:7-11: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion … where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart.’”
In this passage from Psalm 95, God is warning the reader not to make the same mistake as that wilderness generation which failed to enter the promised land—a story that would have been well known to all Jews. The Israelites had been graciously delivered out of the land of Egypt and were heading toward Canaan, a land described as flowing with milk and honey. But most never got there. They never made it to God’s rest in Canaan because they were hard-hearted, rebellious, and filled with unbelief.
The grumbling came to a head in Numbers 14. Spies had been sent into Canaan and had come back with scary descriptions of its powerful inhabitants. The people were on the very edge of the promised land, but they were too afraid to enter it. They wished they had died in the desert (v 2). As a result of their disobedience, God said:
“What you have said in my hearing I will do to you: your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upwards, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell.” (Numbers 14:28-30)
Hebrews 3:16-19 summarizes this well-known story by rehearsing all the reasons why the Israelites failed to enter the promised land: they “heard and yet rebelled” (v 16); they “sinned” (v 17); they “were disobedient” (v 18); and they exhibited “unbelief” (v 19).
With this story of Israel’s rebellion as the backdrop, verse 12 issues a clear warning to readers: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.”
Here we come to the second major warning passage in the book of Hebrews about falling away (the first being 2:1-4). Again, we should remember that to “fall away” is not a reference to a genuine believer losing their salvation. Rather it is a reference to someone inside the covenant community who seems like a believer, but later proves to have an unbelieving heart.
There are three things we should observe about this warning. First, the warning proves that having great spiritual privileges does not guarantee true, saving faith. If there was any group on the planet that should have believed in God, it was the Israelites. Think of all that they had seen: ten miraculous plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, manna from the sky, water from a rock, and the divine presence of God in the tabernacle. And yet, even with all those privileges, most still did not believe.
When it comes to who is saved, God has a habit of overturning our expectations. There are some who have every reason to believe and yet they don’t (for example, Judas, one of Jesus’ own disciples). And there are some who we think will never believe and yet they do (for example, Paul, a hater of Christians). This reminds us that salvation is in the Lord’s hands: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy” (Romans 9:15).
Second, this warning applies to everyone. Our temptation is to think to ourselves, “I don’t need to listen to this warning because I believe in God.” But, the Israelites could have said the same thing! For this reason, Hebrews 3:13 provides one of the cures to drifting away: “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
In other words, we need to take the warnings seriously and urgently—while it is still “today”! We should be regularly exhorting one another to press on and not drift away. Accountability is a great ally in the war against apostasy. We all need it.
Third, this warning teaches us that a good start does not guarantee a good finish. Someone might start their Christian life with excitement and optimism, but the real test is whether a person demonstrates perseverance. Thus, verse 14 says, “For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”
The theme of perseverance will come up again later in this passage, and throughout the book of Hebrews. Steadfastness is the test of the true believer. Jesus also made this point in his parable of the sower, when he indicated that some seed “immediately sprang up” but it didn’t last because “it had no depth of soil” (Mark 4:5).
The Promise Still Stands
With the sobering lesson of the wilderness generation still echoing in the background, our author then makes a remarkable statement in 4:1: “The promise of entering his rest still stands.” In other words, whatever rest God offered the Israelites is still available to the readers of the letter to the Hebrews (and therefore also available to us today).
Such an offer reminds us of something critical: the ultimate rest God had in mind was not a physical plot of land. After all, our author is not asking the readers of his letter to pack their bags and move to Canaan in order to enjoy this rest!
No, this rest that God has in mind is entered only by faith: “For we who have believed enter that rest” (v 3). Indeed, this was precisely the problem of the wilderness generation: “The message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened” (v 2).
Here we learn a tremendous lesson about the way the old covenant operated: a lesson that will come up again and again later in the book of Hebrews. Although it was filled with external structures—temple, land, a physical nation—those structures pointed forward to a fuller reality found in Christ.
The land of Canaan was not God’s highest goal for his people, even in Old Testament times. His highest goal is that they would, by faith, join him in his heavenly, eternal rest.
The fact that this rest is not referring to a plot of land is confirmed later in the chapter when we are told that Joshua did not lead God’s people into rest! Verse 8: “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.”
The point here is profound, especially for a Jewish audience that revered Joshua. Even though Joshua was famous for leading God’s people into the physical land of Canaan, even crossing the Jordan miraculously (Joshua 3:1-17), he did not lead them to the ultimate rest God had in mind. The ultimate rest could only be achieved by another Joshua (Jesus is the Greek version of the name Joshua!) who would come at a later time to deliver his people.
In essence, then, the message of this passage is: which “Joshua” will you follow? The one who only led people to a temporary, physical rest? Or the one who will take you into eternal rest with God in heaven?
God’s Sabbath Rest
If our ultimate rest is spiritual, then what precisely does it look like? At this point, our author introduces a new way of thinking about this rest: it is like joining God in his heavenly Sabbath. In Hebrews 4:3-4, we are reminded of the creation account: “His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: ‘And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.’”
Ever since the creation week ended, God has enjoyed a perpetual, eternal Sabbath in heaven. This doesn’t mean God is inactive—he is busy in all sorts of ways (John 5:17)—but he is still resting from his work of creation. And those who believe in Jesus get to join God in this eternal Sabbath rest. Thus, we are reminded that “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9).
And what’s so great about this eternal sabbath? Our labors will finally come to an end: “For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (v 10). The “works” in view here are the trials and tribulations of our own journey in the “desert” on the way to the heavenly promised land. When we get to heaven, our journey is over and we can finally rest.
Of course, it should be acknowledged that we don’t have to wait till heaven in order to have rest in the Christian life. As soon as we believe in Christ and the Spirit comes to dwell within us, we can enjoy a dimension of rest even in the present.
And yet, the overall thrust of the entire passage is forward looking. Our ultimate rest is still to come. The book of Hebrews describes this destination elsewhere in the book as “a city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (11:10); “a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:16); and “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (12:22).
So, there is an “already but not yet” sense to the rest in view here. We already rest in Christ in the present, and yet we still long for, and strive for, the ultimate rest that awaits us in heaven—our real promised land.
How Do We Enter God’s Rest?
Since this promise of rest still stands, the author invites us to enter it. This requires three things from us.
The first thing we need is faith. As we already observed above (4:2-3), this was precisely the problem with the wilderness generation: they didn’t believe. Israel’s lack of faith is a sober reminder that we must do more than merely the hear the word. Growing up in a Christian family, doing your daily devotional, going to church—these are all good things. But they are not enough to be saved.
That said, it is important that we rightly understand the role that faith plays. It is easy to think that faith is a meritorious act, something you build up strength to do and feel proud of yourself for doing. But in fact, faith is just grabbing hold of the thing that saves us—namely, Jesus. What matters is not just faith itself but the object of our faith. What saves us is Jesus; faith is the way we get Jesus.
The second thing we need is fear. In other words, we need to take seriously the danger of neglecting this great offer of salvation. We see this back in the very first verse of chapter 4: “Let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it” (v 1). If we want to enter into the promised land, we need to tremble; we need to have a healthy fear of ending up like the wilderness generation.
In fact, this theme pops up throughout our passage. Notice that God’s rejection of that generation—“They shall not enter my rest”—is repeated in verses 3 and 5. Also, we are reminded again in verse 6 that the Israelites “failed to enter because of disobedience.” And then in verse 7 the author quotes the sober warning of Psalm 95 yet again: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”
The point is hard to miss. Be sober and serious about making sure you don’t end up like the Israelites, dying in the desert and failing to enter God’s rest.
Our modern world needs this message more than ever. Few today take spiritual matters seriously. Thoughts of eternity are dismissed with a wave of the hand, as if such things will just work themselves out in the end. Sadly, such an approach is precisely what the author is warning us against.
Instead, we should remember that “today” is the day of salvation. Do not put off examining your heart and reflecting upon your eternal status. How does one do that? Well, the passage suggests one way: Israel’s lack of faith was evident in their disobedience (Hebrews 4:6). While we are not saved by our obedience—we are only saved by faith in Christ—our obedience can be a test of whether our faith is real. Indeed, when Jesus explained how to spot false teachers, he said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).
So, how’s the fruit of obedience in your life today? No Christian can be perfect this side of glory; we all fall far short of God’s perfect standard. But if someone truly believes in Christ and is filled with his Spirit, they will inevitably produce good fruit (Matthew 13:23).
The third thing we need is fight. Why? Because the Christian life can be hard. Yes, it can be wonderful, exciting, and fulfilling. But it can also be exhausting, disheartening, and discouraging. If we are going to make it through the desert and to the promised land, it will take effort.
In fact, this is how this section of chapter 4 ends: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest” (Hebrews 4:11). The word “strive” is important here. It reminds us that effort, diligence, and perseverance are essential to the Christian life. No, we are not saved by our efforts—we are only saved by the grace of Christ. But the Christian life still involves effort! It is not passive and detached but active and intentional.
This is why the book of Hebrews will later compare the Christian life to running a race (12:1). Running does not come easy. It takes hard work and sacrifice to push through the pain and the exhaustion.
But there is a great reward at the end. There is a great promised land waiting for you. One day, there will be no more striving, no more temptations, no more trials. There will be peace and rest forever with Jesus. “Whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (4:10). This is our great hope today.